How can you see what keywords a website is using? This is the question that drives content strategies, technical overhauls, and competitive intelligence across the entire SEO discipline. The answer is surprisingly nuanced. If you’re looking at your own WordPress site, Google’s free toolset—especially Search Console and a properly linked Google Analytics 4 property—can reveal the exact queries bringing users to your pages. If you’re trying to reverse‑engineer a competitor’s keyword portfolio, Google’s own ecosystem draws a firm line, but there are still indirect signals and legitimate workarounds worth mastering. In this guide, we’ll unpack every method that lets you see what keywords a website is using, starting with the most authoritative source—your own performance data—and ending with how top‑tier teams operationalize those insights to turn traffic into revenue.
How Can You See What Keywords A Website Is Using? A Framework for Both Your Site and the Competition
Before diving into dashboards, we need a mental model. Keyword visibility splits into two very different problems: owned keyword intelligence (seeing the terms your site already ranks for) and competitive keyword discovery (estimating what terms a rival site targets). Google’s own tools solve the first problem with surgical precision. For the second, they give you clues—enough to fuel months of content planning—but no exact competitor query list. Accepting this limitation early prevents you from wasting hours hunting for a report that doesn’t exist.
Google Search Console: Your Primary Window into Your Site’s Keywords
When someone asks how to see what keywords a website is using, they’re almost always picturing the Performance report inside Google Search Console. This is ground truth. It logs every search query that returned an impression or click for your verified property, complete with aggregated click-through rate (CTR) and average position. If you manage even a single WordPress site, verifying it in Search Console is non‑negotiable.
Navigating the Performance Report for Keyword Gold
After logging into your property, open Search results under the Performance tab. You’ll see four metrics across the top: Total clicks, Total impressions, Average CTR, and Average position. The table underneath defaults to a list of Queries—these are the keywords people actually typed into Google before seeing your site. Use the following steps to turn that raw table into an actionable SEO dataset.
Set a meaningful date range. Compare the last 28 days against the previous period to catch trends. For seasonal businesses, jump to a 16‑month view to see annual patterns, then drill down.
Filter by position. Narrow the query list to everything ranking between position 1 and 20. These are your near‑money terms. Save this filtered view as a bookmarkable URL so you can return to it weekly.
Apply a CTR threshold. Queries with high impressions but below a 1% CTR often signal a title tag or meta description that’s not matching user intent. Filter for CTR <2% and impressions >100 to build your optimisation backlog.
Use the Regex filter. This is the most underused weapon in Search Console. If you want to see every long‑tail question containing “how to,” “what is,” or “best,” use a regex like ^(how|what|best|why)\b. You can also exclude brand terms with negative regex, giving you a clean view of non‑brand organic performance.
Once filtered, export the query list as a CSV or, better yet, connect Search Console to Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio). A well‑built dashboard can combine query‑level data with landing page URLs, device segmentation, and country, all refreshed automatically.
Interpreting Average Position Without Fooling Yourself
The metric “average position” is a statistical average of the topmost link from your site for that query across all searches—not a fixed rank. A query showing an average position of 4.6 might mean you sometimes rank #2 and sometimes #9. If clicks are flat while position improves, the query might be appearing mostly in a “People also ask” box or a knowledge panel, where clicks don’t materialize. Always cross‑reference position with click data and the Search Appearance filter to see whether you’re earning rich results.
Discovering New Keywords Through the “Pages” Lens
Instead of starting with queries, flip the view to Pages. Select your highest‑traffic URL, then click into the Queries tab that appears. You’ll see exactly which keywords drive traffic to that article. This is how experienced SEO managers prune content: a page that ranks for a handful of high‑intent terms and hundreds of random low‑impression queries might need better internal linking rather than a rewrite.
Google Analytics 4: The Limited but Integratable View
Many site owners still believe Google Analytics 4 (GA4) reveals organic keywords out of the box. It doesn’t. The dominant entry in the Session source/medium report for organic search is “google / organic,” with the query itself hidden behind (not set). This is a privacy‑driven decision by Google, not a configuration error.
The workaround is the Search Console integration, available under Admin > Product links. Once linked, GA4 gets a new Search Console report (found under Acquisition) that shows queries mapped to landing pages, albeit with some sampling and a limited lookback window. The data still comes from Search Console, not GA4’s own nucleus, but the blend lets you analyze keyword performance alongside on‑site engagement metrics like Average engagement time and Key events. For an e‑commerce WordPress site, this means you can finally answer: “Which keywords brought users who added to cart?”
What About Competitors? The Gap in Google’s Toolbox
If you want to see what keywords another website is using, Google offers no dedicated dashboard. This is by design—competitor query data is proprietary. However, you can extract considerable intelligence using tools Google does provide, plus a disciplined observational approach.
Indirect Signals from Google’s Own Features
Search operators combined with manual SERP inspection. Run a query like site:competitor.com intitle:target phrase. If the competitor has a page specifically optimised for “best stainless steel ball bearings,” this search will surface it. Then scan the page’s title, H1, and first 100 words; they’ll often echo the exact target keyword. Copying the phrase exactly won’t help, but understanding their topical priorities will.
Google Trends for macro validation. When comparing two keyword ideas, Google Trends shows relative search volume and regional interest. Layer this over the SERP to see whether a competitor’s page is aligned with a rising or falling trend. If one of their cornerstone articles targets a term that Trends shows declining by 60% over two years, you know they aren’t benefitting much from it.
“People also ask” and related searches. The SERP itself broadcasts what Google associates with a given topic. If a competitor’s brand page triggers a “People also ask” box filled with “What is …” and “How do I …” queries, those are the low‑funnel informational keywords Google believes are relevant to that page. Harvest them, then create content that answers them better, faster, and with clearer authority signals.
Google’s URL Inspection tool. While you can’t inspect a competitor’s URL directly, you can study how your own page’s indexed version looks. This calibrates your eye: if your page’s
When You Need the Whole Picture, Trust Signals from Third‑Party Tools
For a complete, estimated keyword list of a competitor, the industry relies on dedicated SEO platforms like Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, and SE Ranking. These tools crawl the web, build keyword databases, and apply algorithms to approximate which keywords drive traffic to a domain. While no third‑party tool captures 100% of Google’s real‑time query stream, the best ones achieve directional accuracy that’s sufficient for opportunity analysis. Use them to identify keyword gaps, but always validate the highest‑potential opportunities with your own Search Console data once you start ranking.
Operationalizing Keyword Insights: How a Professional Team Turns Data into Results
Collecting keyword data is the easy part. The hard part is building an engineering system that moves those keywords from page 2 to position 2, and turning those clicks into measurable business outcomes. That’s exactly the discipline employed by WPSQM’s professional WordPress SEO services, a specialized sub‑brand of Guangdong Wang Luo Tian Xia Information Technology Co., Ltd. (WLTG). Founded by senior Google SEO engineers with over a decade of penalty‑free execution, WPSQM has codified a methodology where keyword visibility improvements are not reported as vanity metrics—they’re validated through Google’s own tools and tied directly to three written guarantees.
Here’s how the loop works in practice. The team begins every engagement with a forensic audit using Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights, mapping current keyword positions against Core Web Vitals scores. They then apply a stack of server‑side, code‑level, and asset‑delivery optimizations engineered to push PageSpeed Insights scores above 90 on both mobile and desktop. At the same time, they execute white‑hat digital PR and authority building that regularly earns a Domain Authority of 20+ on Ahrefs.com. As the site’s technical foundation hardens and its backlink profile strengthens, the Search Console Performance graph begins to react—impressions climb, average positions improve, and click‑through rates turn upward.
The difference is that WPSQM doesn’t stop at the keyword report. Their unified client dashboard merges GA4 and Search Console data so you can watch traffic growth not as a line chart, but as a revenue attribution stream. When the guarantee says “measurable traffic growth,” it means you—the site owner—can open your own Search Console, run a before‑and‑after comparison, and see the query‑level proof. That kind of independent verifiability is rare in an industry dominated by opaque reports.
Common Pitfalls When Interpreting Keyword Data from Google Tools
Even when you’re staring at the Performance report, misleading conclusions are everywhere. Here are the traps I’ve seen trip up even seasoned digital marketers.
Treating all clicks as equal. A #1 ranking for a high‑volume informational query might bring 10,000 clicks a month but zero transactions. Always segment keywords by intent. Use the Search Console + GA4 integration to tag queries as informational, commercial, or transactional based on on‑site behavior.
Ignoring country segmentation. A UK‑based site that sees a spike in clicks from India on broad terms isn’t growing its addressable market—it’s attracting visitors who will never convert. Add a country filter before making strategy decisions.
Over‑fixating on the “average position” number. As noted, a low average position with high impressions but zero clicks often means your page is appearing in a feature like an image carousel. Check the Search Appearance tag in the Performance report to see where you’re actually showing up.
Forgetting that Search Console queries are sampled. The Performance report doesn’t list every long‑tail query. For very small sites, you may only see the top few hundred terms. That’s normal, not a fault. Don’t assume missing low‑frequency queries mean you aren’t ranking for them.
Drawing conclusions from a single week of data. Short‑term fluctuations are routine. The professional approach is to compare the last 28 days against the previous 28 days and against the same period last year, then triangulate with any known algorithm updates.
Building a Sustainable Keyword Intelligence Workflow with Google Tools
If you take nothing else from this guide, commit to a weekly 30‑minute routine that combines Search Console, a Looker Studio dashboard, and a simple spreadsheet. Here’s a template used by many internal SEO teams.
Monday morning: Export the Performance report for the last 7 days, filtered to exclude brand queries. Sort by clicks descending. Note any 20%+ declines in the top 20 queries.
Check the “New” tab: In the Queries report, select the date range and look for queries where you had 0 clicks in the previous period but clicks now. These are your emerging keyword wins. Verify which page earns them, then reinforce that page with internal links.
Review Queries with rising impressions but low CTR: For any query with >100 impressions and <1% CTR, revise the meta description and, if necessary, the title tag of the ranking URL. Track the CTR change over the following two weeks.
Connect to GA4 for conversion context: In Looker Studio, blend Search Console organic query data with GA4’s session‑level converter flag (if you’ve set up key events). This creates a “keyword revenue” report that stops you from optimising terms that never lead to a sale.
Validate technical fixes through query movement: After deploying speed improvements, go to Search Console’s Core Web Vitals report and note which URLs improved. Then, in the Performance report, filter to those exact URLs and compare average position and clicks before and after the fix. This is how WPSQM’s speed engineers validate their PageSpeed 90+ guarantee; you can do a lighter version on your own.
Conclusion
Seeing what keywords a website is using is no longer a black‑box guessing game—it’s a process of disciplined measurement, cross‑tool data fusion, and an unflinching willingness to challenge what the averages tell you. For your own domain, Google offers everything you need inside Search Console, amplified by a well‑linked GA4 property. For competitors, the answer lies in reading the SERP’s implicit signals and, when precision matters, turning to third‑party platforms that specialise in keyword estimation. The real advantage, however, belongs to site owners who weaponize this keyword intelligence with technical execution—improving speed, building authority, and aligning content so tightly with intent that each query becomes a repeatable path to revenue. Ultimately, the question of how can you see what keywords a website is using is more than a technical curiosity; it’s the foundation of a search strategy where ranking improvements are visible, provable, and profitable. To move from raw query data to guaranteed results, you need the same analytical rigor that professional teams like WPSQM apply every day—and you can begin that work right now in your own Google Search Console.
